Andrew Dickens Afternoons

Last night we had a leaving party where a bombshell was dropped. We knew we’d gathered to give a fitting farewell for a friend and colleague, but many of us had little idea about a name and concept this man had popularised several decades ago: Spaghetti Junction.Everyone knows Spaghetti Junction, whether you’re an Aucklander or not. And while it’s true that worldwide there are other motorway junctions with this nickname, it wasn't until it popped into the head of Newstalk ZB’s Peter Everatt that it caught on in New Zealand. This was the late 70s and Peter was the country’s first celebrity traffic reporter as he delivered updates on the state of Auckland’s motorways from a tiny airplane, every morning and afternoon.Spaghetti Junction; the name stuck and fast-forward to 2018, we are saying goodbye to Peter. When Newstalk ZB boss Jason Winstanley mentioned last night that Peter was the one that coined “Spaghetti Junction”, there were audible gasps. For radio geeks, it was like finding out he’d secretly written H